


Hope of the lost

by emocsibe



Series: Of rebels and loves [2]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Dreams, Feelings, First Kiss, Getting Together, Interspecies Relationship(s), Kallus has problems sorting out his feelings, M/M, Nightmares, past Thrawn/Kallus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-03-22 16:46:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13768314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emocsibe/pseuds/emocsibe
Summary: Maybe he is ready to let go of the past and accept that present and future both hold the love he craves, the love he wants – and maybe it also has a way for him to forget and to learn how to love another again, without fear of being torn out of it, without his hopes of it lasting shattering to pieces.





	Hope of the lost

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SheenaWilde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SheenaWilde/gifts).



He’s a rebel, and no laws apply to his choice of partners anymore. The thrill that being with a chiss - an alien, so different and so exciting - gave him seems lost in the past, replaced by guilt and shame; he pities Thrawn and feels his cheeks burn whenever he thinks about the nights they spent together, the nights when he completely submitted to him, to that monster, to that destroyer of hopes - to that gentle and kind lover. He’s baffled by this and the thought makes him want to cry: he believes that Thrawn loved him, and in all honesty, he thinks he could have loved him in return. He wishes he could apologise to the man, to his lover for betraying him, but he could never apologise for betraying the Grand Admiral of the Empire. He feels right. It feels right to work for the rebellion and help the people whom the Empire might not even notice. He cries himself to sleep most nights for the first month he’s staying on the Ghost, and it helps him. He wasn’t allowed to cry - no officers are. Now, he lets the tears fall, and lets his imagination return back to the warm embrace he misses the most from that life, and pulling his own arms around his chest he pushes his face into the pillow and forces himself to forget. Each night he resists the urge to re-live those moments that make his heart tingle with need until he can’t imagine that deep smell, that gorgeous sight, that pleasant feeling anymore.

Just as the first thirty-something nights end in tears, the next one he barely remembers. He’s injured after a mission gone to hell, his consciousness slipping away and returning without any patterns to it, and he feels miserable. He remembers warm hands tucking him under a cold sheet, he remembers the want to hold those hands and clutch them close to his chest, but he can’t lift his arms or move his fingers. He falls unconscious. He dreams.

 

He feels warm and safe, and when he tries to move he can. He touches the weight resting on his waist and when he realises it’s a hand, he hums, mainly in wonder. He doesn’t remember inviting anyone to his bed - honestly, he’s unsure what is the last thing he remembers. The arm is smooth, hairless, warm and broad, and these exclude Zeb and Hera - he doesn’t know how old Ezra and Sabine are but he cringes at the mere thought of being involved with them - and that leaves Kanan. Or Fen Rau if he’s on board. But somehow neither guess feels right, in fact, they feel like ice filling his chest. He wants neither of these people in his bed - or at least not for reasons that would result in a massive hardness pressing against his thigh. He breathes out a sigh, and reaches back to touch his bedmate, to caress and wake if he isn’t awake yet. He closes his eyes as he turns and kisses the man, and he’s destroyed by the gentleness of it. He feels a breath against his wet lips, and he turns around with his whole body, turns around and grabs one of the man’s legs and guides it around his hips and, after what feels like forever, he finds himself where he belongs. The arms around him tighten their hold and he’s kissed sweet and soft and his name is whispered against his tongue as he licks the man’s mouth. He grinds himself against that hot body and it mirrors his slow, circling moves and Kallus is lost. He remembers that he has eyes and although slowly, he opens them. For a slow second, he cannot process the face he’s staring at. He is lost, even more so than some minutes ago, and he’s also frightened to the core. He wants to jump out of the bed and run, get a weapon and throw himself into the nearest escape pod - and yet, his body moves closer to Grand Admiral Thrawn, it denies every command Kallus’ brain is giving it, and Thrawn loves his body and takes it and showers it with kisses and strokes of affection and cherishment. Kallus feels betrayed and he feels like a betrayer. Whenever he would like to pull away his body pulls Thrawn deeper, closer; every time he wants to snarl at him his mouth twitches into a sweet and inviting smile - every time he wants to hate Thrawn, he loves him even more. He cries as Thrawn says something he has never said before. Kallus cries and tries to forget those words. He can’t not remember those, no, he could never banish this memory - and for this, he cries even harder until his breathing stops with a sharp hitch and his eyes freeze staring at Thrawn’s face. As he tries to stay conscious, he still sees as the walls crumble and the vacuum of the space takes the panels and the floor and finally, Thrawn. Kallus is left unharmed as if no laws of physics would apply to him. He wants to cry, to scream, but there is no sound and no breath and no hope. He wishes for death. When death arrives, it is no person but a person-shaped cloud with lightning and galaxies and swirls of exploded planets playing on its form. Kallus notes the red planets where the eyes should be then he dies.

When he opens his eyes, he’s staring at a metallic ceiling, the air is cold and he’s drenched in sweat. It takes minutes for him to catch up with reality, but when he does, he feels disappointment seeping into him as he sits up and faces his surroundings, as he embraced death, embraced the nothing that lifted his burdens from his shoulders, the freedom he guiltily chased until it led him to the rebellion, to the force that stood against everything he worked for and believed in. He recognises the room around himself - he’s on a rebel base, he’s amongst friends and most importantly he’s not dead. Thrawn is not dead - a voice chirps in his mind and Kallus feels his tears gather again. He’s ashamed for crying as much as he does nowadays but he can’t help it. He’s trying to get better, to get rid of this - this something.

 

When Zeb enters the room he smirks at Kallus and lets his hand cover the ex-agent’s shoulder. He talks but Kallus focuses only on the tone and forgets the words themselves as soon as they are spoken.

He reaches out and takes Zeb’s hand, and clings to it, like he did once with a hand that hit him after, scrutinizing his weakness and leaving a terrified boy in his room, too afraid to cry, too hurt to stop, and now he feels the same – the same suffering of being offered no help, no consolation, but needing it desperately. His heart throbs with pained joy when Zeb, instead of pulling away or retorting how this doesn’t fit his character, pulls him closer into his side, letting Kallus bury his head in his jumpsuit, letting him shed tears freely, without judging or comment, offering only his hand for Kallus to hold onto. He cries until it washes away Thrawn, his face, his eyes, the taste of his skin and the warmth of his lips and the love that could have been. He cries until he is empty, until he feels that he can have it all sorted out, that he can have a fresh start and reboot the system so to speak – and Zeb holds him until he lets go of his hand, until he stands and kisses the Lasat on his cheek, purple fur sliding along his jaw softly, arms holding onto him with hope. Maybe he is ready to let go of the past and accept that present and future both hold the love he craves, the love he wants – and maybe it also has a way for him to forget and to learn how to love another again, without fear of being torn out of it, without his hopes of it lasting shattering to pieces. Maybe all his answers are there somewhere, among the stars, among the Ghost crew – maybe his questions will reward him for asking them, for discovering a truth that he is sure Thrawn is familiar with. A truth Thrawn ignores. He could love him again. He could love Garazeb Orellios. He could love both of them if not for the damned war, the cursed sides or the goal that he knows the rebels share with the chiss. Peace for one’s people – it is so small a wish, but such a crucial one… It has the power to start and stop wars, has the power to turn people’s hearts and to make the ignorant hear, the cruel forgive, and yet, it is not enough of a reason for one man to follow what he claimed to cherish above anything. He hopes – rebellions are built on hope, he hears, and he wonders how many hopes it takes to win, to keep fighting -, that one day the Grand Admiral will see reason, that maybe one day he will see the fall of the Empire and the rise of a united Republic, prompting him to join and share his love with Kallus again. He daydreams about this and loves it – somewhere hidden in his heart there is a small place that will never let go of his secret smiles and his eyes, soft and perceptive, shining with red in the dark room – but he knows the nature of dreams; he knows how they only hurt if becoming reality, so he closes this place, and tries to forget about it.

Zeb helps him to forget, helps him to move on, and sometime along the line, Kallus falls in love again. Maybe it is the way the lasat laughs – or maybe it is how he looks at him, or maybe it is his voice that carries calm just as securely as discord, a deep rumble from his chest, one that has become a constant to Kallus. Maybe it is that in the first kiss they ever share, there is not a hint of hesitation, just a whole sea of feelings, ready to drown Kallus where he stands. It is a nice kiss, one that he will carry with him forever, one that makes him warm and content, one that makes his head light and his heart fast, one that offers comfort and takes the worries away – a perfect first kiss from Zeb, followed by many more.

Kallus has always taken pride in his perception skills, in the way he could uncover secrets and fake moods, emotions, that he could detect intentions even before the person he analysed could think of them – this is why it took him by surprise, when Zeb pulls him close and kisses him, this is why he, at first, can’t believe that it is reality, that it is really happening. They are on a supply run, getting blasters from a smuggler, one they have dealt with previously and that has proven to be trustworthy – and too afraid to try his luck with the Empire anyways –, and Kallus enjoys every moment of traveling with Zeb, hearing him talk, his voice rough and deep, his stories funny and easy. He loves listening to him, and loves it when they are alone, loves it when there is no one around to tell him how besotted he looks from time to time, how he falls into a contemplative blankness whenever Zeb does or says something that reignites a lost spark within him. He listens now, lets Zeb make the deal, and then they are back on the Phantom, autopilot taking the course back to base, back to the prying eyes, so Kallus just looks his share, notices details he has already memorised and delights in how constant Zeb is, how he is the only stable point in his life ever since his escape from the Empire. He stares and evidently Zeb notices as he offers him a smile, one cheeky grin, full of teeth and mirth, full of affection and promises. And Kallus, after months of asking himself the same questions, and finally answering himself what he has wanted all along, he feels now that he is free. Free to choose and free to love – and he leans closer until his lips are against Zeb’s cheeks, stopping there, waiting like that, waiting and hoping, and then Zeb moves. He catches Kallus’ mouth with his, breath hot and the small laughter following it is fresh and weightless. They kiss again, and again – both feeling light and delighted.

 

Sometime after that, Kallus dreams of Thrawn again – they stand on a planet, ice twinkling joyously even in the weak light, snow around their feet, cold wind in their hair, and they don’t talk. They hold hands and Kallus cries, and never once looks at the man beside him for he feels like breaking, feels like he failed him, that he should bridge the gap his betrayal caused – but he knows not how he should do it. Should he beg to him to see reason? Or gather evidence against the Empire that even Thrawn cannot ignore it? Why is he loyal to such a construct, he wonders, when he knows it well, how Thrawn thinks and how he cannot be led on this easily, no. There is also the factor the he, as a non-human officer, must have discovered how the Empire operates from amongst the shadows – they offer a friendly handshake and a blaster to the head at the same time. He feels the cold, feels how his fingers go numb, and then how his eyes refuse to open – he wakes when he freezes in his dream, but he carries the troubling question to the waking world.

When he sits up in the bed, his head misses the upper bunk by an inch – he is on the Ghost, he remembers; they are on a recon mission that might turn into sabotage if the circumstances are ideal, which means that he has to be alert. With how his hands are shaking from the illusion of the cold he dreamt of, and with how his brain is already running its endless loops around a past that might have been future, about a future that might never come to pass, he knows that he will be ready for anything. He needs distraction, he needs to hit something or to feel death closing in on him, or anything that is equally satisfying of shaking. He looks at the lasat next to him, still sleeping, and Kallus thinks that maybe he should wake Zeb, maybe he should ask him for a quick round, but then he berates himself for the thought. He loves Zeb, he truly loves him, and for that, he will never let his moods put Zeb in any other position than he deserves. He will never be a distraction. Never.

 

After that, his dreams go away, his nightmares turn into meaningless smoke when he wakes, and his heart feels lighter – even free –, and it is filled with love. He loves a lasat and he loves freedom; he lives for Zeb and breathes for the Rebellion, Thrawn’s shadow not forgotten but forcefully buried at the darkest part of his soul. He trains the recruits the ways of spying, the ways of lying, the art of being someone else, of staying alive, and he hopes that just for once, just for now, his art will be superior to Thrawn’s. He hopes. He rebels.

**Author's Note:**

> I ship KalluZeb with all my heart, but whenever I start writing, the story goes back to Thrawn/Kallus angst. Well. I tried to bridge it here. Third part is under consideration.


End file.
